-
Posts
808 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Events
Forums
Downloads
Quizzes
Gallery
Blogs
Everything posted by Polar Bear
-
Is it to late to sterilized the dog ?
Polar Bear replied to steph83's topic in Plants, Pets & Vets in Thailand
It's not too late, but make sure the vets at the temple know. Regardless of whether she has mated, if she is in season, there will be more blood flow to the uterus, so they need to be prepared. With street dogs, vets usually assume they could be in season anyway, so it probably doesn't matter, but it's still better to tell them. -
I've had vaccines at Medconsult, Samitivej and MedPark. Medconsult is my preferred option because they are better organised and don't waste time. It always takes well over an hour at the hospitals, and you have to go over everything multiple times with different people, and then one room for blood pressure, another to see the doctor to get the prescription, another to get the jab, back to reception to do your 15-minute wait, and then find the payment counter and wait again. Then it's another wait to get your car back. It's tedious. At MC, it's all done in one room, and I can be in and out in 20 minutes. However, my husband has been to MedConsult for medical issues and wasn't particularly impressed. So if I needed to see a GP, I'd probably go elsewhere, but for routine stuff like vaccinations and health certificates, we've never had a problem.
-
Have you ever been tricked by budget airlines charging for luggage ?
Polar Bear replied to jippytum's topic in Bangkok
Are you sure it's Air Asia and not Thai Vietjet? TVJ will only let you pay per kg on top of an existing baggage booking. For example, if you have prepaid for 10kg and have 12kg, you can pay per kg for the extra 2. But if you haven't paid for any, you will have to pay for a 20kg bag, you can't just pay for 2kg. They only offer 10kg & 20kg at the airport, but there's a bigger range for prebooking. The cost difference is substantial, for a different domestic flight, a 20kg bag was something like 350 THB in advance or 1,000 THB at the airport. Excess was 250 or 300 THB per kg, around that price. Being 1kg over, worked out as slightly less than pre-booking a 20kg bag. -
How come English speakers are incomprehensible to others?
Polar Bear replied to vangrop's topic in Pattaya
Euro English is a separate dialect (or set of dialects, depending on how you want to break it down) to standard English. As it's primarily used as a lingua franca, it is typically spoken more slowly, the vocabulary and grammar are slightly simplified, and it's more concrete because idioms rarely translate well. Naturally, the parts that have been dropped in Euro English are the parts that learners find most difficult. If that's what you have primarily been exposed to, of course you will find British/American/Whatever English more difficult to understand, especially if the speaker has an accent or uses a local dialect. The solution is to practice listening to a wider variety of dialects. Americans often struggle more with British accents compared to Brits who generally have fewer problems with American accents. That's partly down to there being a wider range of strong accents in the UK, but it's mostly because we are exposed to a lot more American English through TV and movies. When British accents do make it in American media they are usually received pronunciation and bear little resemblance to how most people actually talk. Brits flounder just as much when faced with a strong unfamiliar American accent. (And I once had a very confusing conversation with a Glaswegian Rasta. My Scottish friend had to translate because despite us both supposedly speaking English we didn't appear to have any language in common at all.) Find movies where actors have local accents or watch/listen to local news from around the world. If you are serious about it, there are plenty of materials online for English learners who need to understand a broader range of dialects. -
Have you ever been tricked by budget airlines charging for luggage ?
Polar Bear replied to jippytum's topic in Bangkok
I used to fly with KLM relatively frequently. Their long-haul economy tickets don't include a checked bag anymore, and the ticket prices have increased. They weren't usually the cheapest option, but they were reasonably good value. Now, adding a bag makes them one of the most expensive options, and they've got ultra-cramped aircraft by cramming extra seats in. I guess most people don't find out how bad they are until they take the flight, but they would be one of my last choices now. -
Lynn and Vanhanen, but their 'research' is garbage. It had pretty much every methodological flaw you can have with IQ tests. Un-normed tests, no random samples, taking massively skewed data and claiming it was representative of an entire country. (For example, the estimate for Sierra-Leon was based on how well a group of schoolchildren could draw stick men. Lynn and Vanhanen used that as an estimate for adult IQ across the whole country. Even the original authors objected to Lynn and Vanhanen's interpretation.) When they couldn't even find data that bad, they just 'estimated', i.e., made it up, based on countries nearby or which they felt were somehow similar, with no documentation of criteria of course. The data was manipulated so egregiously that it is meaningless. But then Richard Lynn built his entire career around trying (unsuccessfully) to prove his white supremacist theories. If he'd been right, he wouldn't have had to keep faking data to get publications.
-
That's not how IQ tests work. IQ tests are culturally dependent. An American taking an IQ test normed for the UK will score lower than they would on a test normed for the USA, and vice versa. Of course a Thai will score lower on a USA-normed test, and an American or Brit would score lower on a Thai-normed test. They are designed to have an average of 100 wherever they were intended to be used. There is no valid universal IQ test. You can't just translate it into another language and call it equivalent. The bigger the cultural and language differences, the more useless an IQ test is unless it has been normed locally. Even the most basic things like digit span and working memory are confounded by language.
-
Renewal Of 5 Year Driver's License
Polar Bear replied to patsfangr's topic in Thailand Motor Discussion
We use Fatboy's On Nut when we need an agent for driving licence stuff, but for a standard renewal, they can't do much because you still have to physically go to the center for the tests and so on. If you want the number, DM me. It's a bit hard to track down the right phone numbers since they split the company up. -
There's a vaccine for Dengue now as well (Qdenga). You can get Dengue 4 times, and each subsequent infection has an increased risk for the most severe outcomes.
-
They don't know yet because it hasn't been around long enough. It only got a general release in 2017. The data from the people who had it in the drug trials comes in every few years. At the moment, they say up to 7 years, but the initial data from the 10-year cohort suggests you are still covered at 10 years. They will have to wait another year or two to get the results from the bigger trial to be able to say 10 years with certainty. It will continue to creep up like that until they either identify when immunity starts to drop or that it never drops enough for a booster to be required. I got it at Medconsult in Bangkok in October (5,590 THB per shot). Thai Travel Clinic has it for 5,199 THB per shot, but they add doctor and hospital fees on top, so it comes out about the same as Medconsult in the end. I had a really sore arm for a few days, like I'd been punched hard in the arm, but that was all. I've been waiting anxiously for Shingrix to come out here. My dad had recurrent shingles, and he wasn't the kind of man to complain about pain or illness, but shingles floored him every time. The only time I ever saw him cry was when he had a bout on his face. I would pay whatever they asked to never go through that. I'm glad it's finally made it to Chiang Mai!
-
An average IQ is 85-115. The scale is adjusted to ensure that's the range. Anything within it is average. In terms of being able to do a regular job, there will be no discernable difference between someone with an IQ of 89 or 107. The tests are not that precise. You are reading far too much into them.
-
Have you ever been tricked by budget airlines charging for luggage ?
Polar Bear replied to jippytum's topic in Bangkok
I had exactly the same thing with Vietjet for a flight to Vietnam. I think it ended up being 200 THB for the insurance, and as far as I recall, it didn't even cover me because it was only for Thai citizens. I did go back through the booking process to see where it happened, and they added the insurance charge back on the final page, where you put your card details, even though you already removed it 2 pages previously. I also got stung recently with Thai Lion Air. I booked a promo fare that included a 15 kg free checked bag and an extra legroom seat. Once the paperwork came through, it just said promo fare and not what was included. At check-in, the extra legroom seat was there, but not the bag. TLA claimed they had no record of any such promo, and the extra fee only included the seat fee. I would never have booked that because I'm a short arse, so I don't need extra legroom. I ended up paying for an additional 10 kg of luggage. When they sent the receipt through it said 15 kg (promo) + 10 kg (paid). I tried to argue about it, but they insisted baggage fees were non-refundable. -
They were never lost. His connecting flight was cancelled and he wanted to visit his dogs while they were in transit. No airline or airport allows that. So he threw a temper tantrum until the police got involved and made the airline take the dogs out of transit for him. Airlines do lose, injure and even kill dogs sometimes. But this guy was just an entitled brat.
-
Female Bangkok teacher accused of sexually assaulting schoolgirl
Polar Bear replied to snoop1130's topic in Bangkok News
2012, and one of the big drives to change it was because of US states that have chemical castration for rape. Convicted (male) rapists still sometimes re-offend but use bottles or other objects instead, which at the time, wasn't technically rape. I doubt there were many 'woke' activists involved in that campaign. -
Female Bangkok teacher accused of sexually assaulting schoolgirl
Polar Bear replied to snoop1130's topic in Bangkok News
I don't know what the wording is in Thailand, but this certainly isn't the definition everywhere. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated-definition-rape -
Renewal Of 5 Year Driver's License
Polar Bear replied to patsfangr's topic in Thailand Motor Discussion
I didn't have to do a colourblind book, but I was the only person being tested at the time, and the guy who was taking me round seemed entirely bored by the whole thing, so maybe he just couldn't be bothered. -
Renewal Of 5 Year Driver's License
Polar Bear replied to patsfangr's topic in Thailand Motor Discussion
I couldn't do the proximity test either, but the DLT guy who was taking me around the tests gave me hints. Also, the colour blind test at the center I used was lights, and I had to say the colour of the light. -
The go-to pain relief for dogs is usually Rimadyl/Carprofen but it's not something you should be self administering without a vet. It can be very hard on the liver and kidneys, as well as potentially causing ulcers and other gastro problems. As a minimum, you should do her blood work before starting her on it, especially if she might be on it long term.
-
It's too late to edit my post, but I realised there's an error in it. It is 500g of ground meat, but also another 250g of other meat. I use a mix of chunks of meat and offal, or sometimes a couple of frozen rounds of dog food from Sloanes butcher.
-
Shingrix (shingles vaccine) available in Thailand now
Polar Bear replied to Polar Bear's topic in Health and Medicine
In case anyone is deciding between these two, there is no real price difference. MedConsult lists the total price. TTC is the vaccine price, but you have to add the hospital fee, doctor fee, vaccine fee and whatever else on, and in the end, there's only about 50 THB difference between them. -
Try her with the brown rice then. The extra fibre will help if she's OK with it. If you give her what you are having, make sure hers has NO added salt. It can cause them a lot of problems, especially as they get older. Bulking up her food but reducing the fat should help her shift some weight. If you cook the potatoes to a mush with chicken, she may well eat them. It just all becomes chicken flavoured slop. If it helps, I usually cook for my dogs (for various reasons). This is my basic recipe: (Based on 750 ml plastic tubs because that's what I usually have around.) 500g ground meat lightly fried/browned. 1 tub brown rice 1/3 tub of lentils and/or split peas 1 tub green veg (broccoli, spinach, beans, etc.) 1 tub other veg (carrot, cauliflower, squash, etc.) 1 can sardines in oil or 2 eggs Boil it all up, simmer it down, add a handful of quick-cook oats to thicken if needed. This makes around 6l or 8 x 750 ml tubs. My previous dog was 23kg, but she was older and sicker than yours. She ate 250 ml/day split over 3 or 4 smaller meals. She was already refusing to eat kibble at that stage. She had chicken or low-fat ground beef, and only got sardines occasionally. When that was getting too much for her, I cut the rice by 1/3, lentils by 1/2 and had one mixed tub of veg. That reduced the volume without decreasing the protein too much. It was already low fat, so there wasn't much to change there. She ate that happily until she died at about 15 My current young, active 14kg dog eats 1/2 tub for dinner, plus a good quality kibble during the day (approx half a recommended daily serving, but I don't really measure it.) I freeze the tubs and it lasts him ~2 weeks. When we were in Kazakhstan he was a lot more active, and it was insanely cold (he was getting 2 x 1 hour walks in -30c). He had the highest fat beef I could get, and I added extra oil. He had a full tub per day (1/2 for breakfast, 1/2 for dinner ) plus as much kibble as he wanted. In winter, he got snacks of butter, peanut butter and sardines, basically as much fat as he could handle to keep the weight on him.